At the time of Adam’s sin and his being sentenced to death, his offspring or race were all unborn in his loins and so all died with him. (Compare Heb 7:4-10.) Jesus as a perfect man, “the last Adam” (1Co 15:45), was the only human capable of providing the redemption price for Adam’s unborn offspring. He willingly offered himself to die innocently as a perfect human sacrifice, in harmony with Jehovah’s will. (Heb 10:5) Jesus will make use of the authority granted by Jehovah on the basis of his ransom to give life to all those who accept this provision.​—1Co 15:45; compare Ro 5:15-17.

Adam sold himself to do evil for the selfish pleasure of keeping continued company with his wife, now a sinful transgressor, so he shared the same condemned standing with her before God. He thereby sold himself and his descendants into slavery to sin and to death, the price that God’s justice required. (Ro 5:12-19; compare Ro 7:14-25.) Having possessed human perfection, Adam lost this valuable possession for himself and all his offspring.

The real ransom sacrifice, a human actually capable of removing sins, must therefore also be perfect, free from blemish. He would have to correspond to the perfect Adam and possess human perfection, if he were to pay the price of redemption that would release Adam’s offspring from the debt, disability, and enslavement into which their first father Adam had sold them. (Compare Ro 7:14; Ps 51:5.) Only thereby could he satisfy God’s perfect justice that requires like for like, a ‘soul for a soul.’​—Ex 21:23-25; De 19:21.

The strictness of God’s justice made it impossible for mankind itself to provide its own redeemer. (Ps 49:6-9)